Merchants
Members of the commercial enterprises. Merchants may crew the ships of the large trading corporations, or they may work for the independent free traders which carry chance cargos and passengers between worlds. Merchant characters may be constantly on the move, or may remain in one place throughout their term of service. Merchants can engage in every activity from plodding, conventional commerce, through quasi-legal actions, to outright violations of the law such as smuggling. Merchants can accumulate skills relating to space flight, such as pilot and navigation, to trade, such as admin, and to less technical but equally important aspects of life, such as brawling, gambling, and forgery. STEP THREE: Now that you have successfully Enlisted, you must: Survive; attempt to earn your Commission (become an officer in your service); and hopefully Reenlist. Note that you must earn your Commission before you can be Promoted, as soon as you earn your Commission you can roll for Promotion. Promotion rolls cannot be rolled retroactively. Roll 2d6, adding any DM's that apply, for each row in Table 1, keep the below points in mind as you do: *Service Terms: Four year periods of time where your character earns skills and certain severance benefits. *Characters begin at age 18. *Your physical characteristics (STR, DEX, and END) have a chance to deteriorate beginning at the age of 34. Consult the Aging article for more information. *Rule of 12. Upon rolling for Reenlistment a result of 12 means that your character was involuntarily extended in their service, You must serve another service term. *Make sure to note how many Enlistments and Promotions your character earned during their service terms. *Your character can only be Commissioned once, and may not be Promoted until being Commissioned. Draftees are not eligible for Commission in their first service term. *You may roll for Promotion in the same turn your character was Commissioned. *A character Retires after serving five service terms. The exception to this is the rule of 12 mentioned above. STEP FOUR: Now that you have served all of your terms and have either Retired, died (in this case return to step one), failed to Reenlist, or chosen not to Reenlist. Table 2 below shows you how many skills you are eligible to roll for in Step Five. STEP FIVE: Choose a category (listed in the far left row) of skills from Table 3 below, then roll 1d6. Your character learned the result of this die roll. Characteristic increases take effect immediately and do not require notation (each result grants +1 to the characteristic rolled), each skill rolled grants a level in that skill. Example, you chose Advanced Education as the skill category and then rolled a 1 on 1d6. Your character earns Vacc Suit-1. If you were to roll this skill again, then you would increase your character's skill with vacc suits to Vacc Suit-2. Be sure to track all skills rolled and to allocate all characteristic adjustments. For more information consult the Skills article. STEP SIX: Mustering out, leaving service and beginning your career as a traveler, grants you severance in a variety of ways. Consult Table 4 below to determine how many rolls you may make on the Muster and/or Cash tables also listed below. *Rolls granted by rank are added only once. *Those characters of rank 5 or 6 may add +1 to any Muster rolls. *Those characters who have Gambling-1 or higher may add +1 to any Cash rolls. *Characters are limited to 3 rolls on the Cash table. *Rolls of Blade, Gun, or Weapon first grant the physical equipment item with subsequent rolls either granting additional articles or a skill level in the weapon type of choice.